For all that it has helped man learn, the claim that man is primarily a being who questions is inadequate. It may create minds without hearts. It may lead to the worship of information on the one hand or to skepticism on the other. Even worse, it may lead to despair, for knowledge alone can never satisfy. Will man be happy when he has split the last atom and searched all the sands of the sea? Deeper than the desire to know is the desire to be known. Man’s fundamental need is not to ask a question but to respond to one. Only by responding do I learn to be responsible; only by responding do I learn to care about something beyond myself.
The Lord’s Question: Thoughts on the Life of Response by Dennis Rasmussen. Brigham Young University Press. April 1985. Chapter One, “Where Art Thou?” p.4
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